Flake Pipes

Brothers of Briar

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I've seen em go in the $150 range on the Bay Yak. One of these days. Luckily, they're not terribly rare.
 
Yak":tc4rrhed said:
Sirloin.

Ground Sirloin.

:face:
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Haha. Clever fellow.

"Enjoy every sandwich."

-- The late Warren Zevon, with but a few months to live, when asked if he had any parting wisdom for his fans :star:
 
I'm watching that 74, but just out of curiosity. I'm not going to be buying for a while. It's a nice example.
 
Yak":dvps8un3 said:
On the high points of the rustication ?
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No, on the stem, which was inserted upside down. The "dot" is on the right side, and looks brownish/reddish.
 
I was wondering if that was just lighting. The more modern white bar stems are preferable, they generally have (in my experience) better, more open airflow with better internal tapering towards the button. That one does have nice, older style fat carved rustication though.
 
This older thread was enlightening:
https://www.brothersofbriar.com/t2595-a-castello-question?highlight=Castello
And I do like the rustication on that pipe as well.
 
A lot of differences of opinion on what makes a good flake pipe. Some like a tall narrow bowl, and others like a wide short bowl, just a matter of preference. To me, a tall and narrow bowl does best with intact flakes. Dunhill started the group sizing thing, and it refers the the size of the chamber. A typical grp 5 has about a .75 in chamber, a grp 6 .80 or a bit larger, an ODA around an inch or so.
 
This is an interesting topic, and one I always like to discuss.

One match that I have found to my liking, is matching Latakia dominant blends in really large bowled briars.

I have used my calipers, and checked the configuration on a lot of my pipes. Even when I smoke a Latakia blend in a perfectly cubed shape pipe, such as one of my prince shapes, I can't tell that it delivers a better flavor from a particular tobacco. However, my larger bowled pipes seem to perform much better with Latakia dominant blends.

I have also found that my largest bowled pipes do very well with cigar leaf blends, such as Billy Budd.

When it comes to flake pipes, some folks believe that the bowl should be at least twice as tall, as it is wide. I have a very small pickaxe pipe , the one in the pic. The bowl in this pipe is almost 3 times as tall as it is wide. I always use it for flakes, as it would make for a very short smoke with a Latakia blend. However, by the time I get to the last third of the bowl, the remaining tobacco is quite moist and difficult to keep lit. I sometimes give this pipe a couple days to dry with the remaining tobacco, before I finish it off.

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However, I also have this leather clad Jeantet billiard that smokes great with Christmas Cheer, and it has the standard 1 to 1 cube shape that some folks feel works best with Latakia blends.

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It just makes sense to me, to use my smaller bowled pipes for flake tobacco. Regardless of thier height to width ratio.

I only have 2 conical shaped bowls, and I plan to buy some G.L. Pease Abingdon, to see how a true Balkan blend burns in a conical shaped bowl, which is supposed to be superior from what I have read.

This quest to match certain tobaccos with particular pipes, does not frustrate me at all, but rather gives much more depth, to an already interesting hobby.
 
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